Stronger
"Stronger" is a song by American recording artist Britney Spears, taken from her second studio album Oops!... I Did It Again (2000). It was released on November 13, 2000, by Jive Records as the third single of the album. The teen pop and dance-pop song has self-empowerment lyrics about a girl who is tired of her cheating boyfriend and decides to live without him. 'More Information' |-|Background= In 1999 Spears began work on her second studio album Oops!...I Did It Again (2000), in Sweden and Switzerland. After meeting with Max Martin and Rami Yacoub in Sweden, Spears recorded several songs for the album, including "Stronger", which was co-written and co-produced by Martin and Rami. Upon returning to the United States, the singer revealed in an interview with MTV News that: "I just got back from Sweden, and did half of the material Oops! over there. I was really, really happy with the material, but we had such limited time to get so much done. So I've just really been in the studio nonstop, which is cool, though." Spears recorded her vocals for the song from November 1999 to January 2000 at Cheiron Studios in Stockholm, Sweden. "Stronger" was released on November 13, 2000 as the third single from the album. |-|Reception= "Stronger" was lauded by music critics. Stephanie McGrath of Jam! considered the song "the best dance track" of Oops!, deeming the song "every bit as good as *Nsync's 'Bye, Bye, Bye' or The Backstreet Boys' 'The One'." Tracy E. Hopkins of Barnes and Noble, while reviewing the album, said, "Spears shines on the tongue-in-cheek lead single, the triumphant 'Stronger'..." David Veitch of Calgary Sun considered "Stronger" to be as "another boom-bastic upbeat track", while saying the song is "notable for its foghorn synth, fabulous rhythm track and heavy effects applied to Britney's voice. Why she's panting at the end of the bridge is anybody's guess." A review by the NME staff compared "Stronger" to songs recorded by ABBA, saying, "there's the deranged helium synth pop of 'Stronger' with the huge ABBA chord change in the chorus that sounds scarier and more robotic than the Backstreet Boys." Andy Battaglia from online magazine Salon said "Stronger" "could crush the entire self-help industry with its melody alone." In the United States, "Stronger" managed to peak at number eleven on Billboard Hot 100 and number seventeen on the Top 40 Mainstream chart. It was also certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). "Stronger" also peaked at number two on the Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales component chart, and number thirty-seven on Rhythmic Top 40. As of June 2012, "Stronger" has sold 415,000 physical units, with 270,000 paid digital downloads in the United States. It is Spears' third best-selling physical single in the country. "Stronger" also achieved commercial success worldwide, reaching number four in Austria and Sweden, six in Ireland and Switzerland, and eight in Finland, while reaching the top twenty in several European countries. On the week of December 16, 2000, "Stronger" debuted at number seven in the The Official Charts Company from the United Kingdom, falling to number eleven in the following week. In Australia, the song peaked at number thirteen, and was later certified Platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for shipments of more than 70,000 units of the single. In France, "Stronger" reached number twenty, making it the lowest chart position for the song worldwide. However, it was certified Silver by the Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique (SNEP), for selling over 125,000 units of the single. In Germany, the song reached number four on the Media Control Charts, being certified Gold by the Bundesverband Musikindustrie (BVMI) for shipping over 250,000 units of the single. |-|Music Video= The music video for the song was directed by Joseph Kahn, who revealed that the concept for the music video was created by Spears herself, by saying "I would like to dance in a chair and drive in a car and break up with my boyfriend. ... Those are your three elements." Kahn ended up creating, according to Jocelyn Vena of MTV, "a semi-futuristic world in which Spears walks into a club, breaks up with her cheating boyfriend and triumphantly walks in the rain, knowing her life is better off without him." Kahn also considered the music video as very sophisticated, saying that it is "definitely a departure from the sort of candy-colored videos she was doing before, so I always thought this was the transition between Britney the teenage pop star and Britney the sort of diva she became."An alternate footage of the video can be found on the DVD of Spears first compilation album Greatest Hits: My Prerogative. Kahn revealed that Spears' referenced Janet Jackson's "The Pleasure Principle" and "Miss You Much" music videos for the video's chair routine, saying her idea was inspired by "Janet Jackson's 'Pleasure Principle' — the iconic chair sequence in that".22 A review of the video also commented "Ms. Spears gives us her best Janet Jackson impression (“Miss You Much“) with a dizzying chair-dance routine." Spears also referenced and draws inspiration from Janet in several other music videos, including "Don't Let Me Be the Last to Know". "Overprotected (Darkchild Remix)", "Circus", and "Womanizer". The video begins with a closed caption that reads "Britney Spears – Stronger", amidst the sound of a storm. It then cuts to a close up of Spears looking at her boyfriend, who is smiling with another woman holding him. She realizes she is better without him and walks away, after saying, "Whatever," to the audience. There is a shot of the tower they were in, in an apparent semi-futuristic world. At the beginning of the first chorus, Spears starts dancing with an Emeco 1006-style chair in front of a black background. The second half of the video finds Spears driving away from the party in a classic Ford Mustang during a thunderstorm; however, before long, her car goes into a spin out, then stops on the very edge of the bridge. After recovering from the shock of it, she's forced to continue walking on in the rain. Cuts of her dancing with a cane, transformed from the chair, are also included. The video ends with Spears walking across a bridge. Two versions of the video exist, one in which at the end of video Britney stands in mid air above the spinning chair, and in the other a close up of her singing.Nuzhat Naoreen of MTV praised the music video, saying, "few performers can work an entire routine on and around a chair as well as Britney did in 'Stronger'". The music video received a nomination on the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards for Best Pop Video. |-|Lyrics= Intro: Ooh hey, yeah 1: Hush, just stop There’s nothing you can do or say, baby I’ve had enough I’m not your property as from today, baby You might think that I won't make it on my own Chorus: But now I’m stronger than yesterday Now it’s nothing but my way My lonliness ain’t killing me no more I, I’m stronger 2: That I ever thought that I could be, baby I used to go with the flow Didn’t really care ‘bout me You might think that I can’t take it, but you’re wrong Chorus: ‘Cause now I’m Stronger than yesterday Now it’s nothing but my way My lonliness ain’t killing me no more I’m stronger Break: Come on, now Oh, yeah Bridge: Here I go, on my own I don’t need nobody, better off alone Here I go, on my own now I don’t need nobody, not anybody Here I go, alright, here I go Chorus: Stronger than yesterday It’s nothing but my way My loneliness ain’t killing me no more ‘Cause now I’m stronger than yesterday Now it’s nothing but my way My lonliness ain’t killing me no more I, I’m stronger Now I’m stronger than yesterday Now it’s nothing but my way My loneliness ain’t killing me no more (No more) I, I’m Stronger 'Credits' *Britney Spears – lead vocals, background vocals *Max Martin – production, songwriting, audio mixing, keyboards, programming, background vocals *Rami Yacoub – production, songwriting, keyboards *Nana Hedin – background vocals *John Amatiello – Pro Tools engineering *Tom Coyne – audio mastering Category:Singles Category:Singles from Oops!... I Did It Again